Not really controversial, but it IS painful. My dog, that I had since December 22nd, 1999, passed away today. She was acting odd the last few days. We thought she was near death but, as she seemed to eek on, we brought her to the vet and found that she had apparently a liver swollen to twice its normal size and that had started to leak, filing her body with fluid. That had caused the weird symptoms like gagging but not vomiting, weaker stools, falling over and sometimes peeing herself, and whining in pain every time we held her near her stomach.

Indeed, she had so much fluid in her that the vet at first had a hard time getting her heart beat. We might have been able to get the fluid out and get her some pain pills, but she would NOT have had a good quality of life anyway, as she was already near blind, near deaf, having trouble walking, having some bladder issues, and other issues that come with old age. So we made the decision to have her put down.

I’m sorry. I came into the family when my parent had a dour year old German short-haired pointer. He and I grew up together and he lived to be 15 when we had to put him down. He was healthy until about a month or two before we realized the full extent of his old age.

I had a Dachshund named Noel. I got her a few months after our dog Pepper that I had since I was 8 or 9 months old passed away. He lived to be about 9.5. He had a heart murmur and likely died or a stroke or seizure or something. He did have either a stroke or seizure a few days before his death but lived through it. My parents kept it from me as they thought I, at about 10, was too young to know. It was a bad move as I found him dead a few days later and lost trust in my parents over it for years.

We got Noel around Christmas of 1999. All was well till about 2014, when she had some walking problems and sometimes couldn’t hold her bladder anymore. I started then to fear I was losing her. However, she lasted till the beginning of June, at which point, she REALLY went downhill. She was flopping over and peeing herself. It almost looked like bloat. However, as bloat is supposed to be fatal and fast acting, when she didn’t die within a day or two, we figured it couldn’t be bloat.

She made it to June 4th, still sometimes flopping over and peeing herself (including one time, she peed herself when rolling after I gave her a bath (I thought her weird actions might be from really bad arthritis.) After she flopped over again on June 4th, though very reluctant to put her down, even threatening to kidnap her and run off with her if my parents tried it (my fear was that they might just want her put down someday just to say some $$$ on carpet if she peed too much.).

We took her to the vet. I had convinced my dad to check to see what was wrong with her just so I wouldn’t feel guilty. I then left the room and they did put her down. Dad said later that they had found that her liver had swollen to twice the size it should be and had started to leak fluid in her body. That was why she was panting like her lung was weak and she sometimes fell over and peed. It was due to all the fluid in her body. Indeed, it was so bad that at first the vet couldn’t find her heartbeat. They said they could do some operation to fix her, but

1.) It wasn’t guaranteed to save her at her age.
2.) She already couldn’t hear well.
3.) She had terrible arthritis and couldn’t walk well.
4.) She couldn’t see well.
5.) Her sense of smelling of going.
6.) Her energy was about 0.
7.) She was already 89 in dog years.

With that in mind, Dad said he decided to put her down, which I agreed with.

That picture was the last one taken of her (about a few hours before her death).

She was one of the longest living dogs in our entire extended family. Another thing, that was likely painful both for her too was that her neighbor dog friend also wasn’t doing well. At 13, he had gotten such a bad heart that it was too dangerous to even walk him across the yard as he could have a heart attack. He was put down about 2 weeks after she was.

Also, I nicknamed her “Wuba” (after some term I heard on Rugrats as a kid). I nicknamed my first dog “Diggy” (because he liked to dig) and our current one is nicknamed “Barkah Warkah” because he likes to bark and bark and bark.